SEATTLE — A slim glass case holds about 30 artifacts — bone blanket pins, a bracelet, fishing equipment, an ornate comb — at Seattle’s Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture.
The case, on view since mid-May, is titled “Tse-whit-zen Village: What Can the Ancestors Tell Us?”
The display, small and simple, reveals how the people of Tse-whit-zen turned everyday objects into works of art.
It also shows how the 900 boxes of the Tse-whit-zen collection, stored by the Burke, are a long way from a comprehensive exhibition.
The artifacts — many of which are at least 2,700 years old — that are housed at the museum are in addition to the 1,000-or-so pieces found since July 7 in new work at the Tse-whit-zen site on Marine Drive in Port Angeles.
The artifacts at the museum were unearthed from 2003 to 2004, during the beginning stages of the construction of the Hood Canal Bridge graving yard, a large dry-dock facility.
The discovery of the ancient Klallam village eventually stopped the project in December 2004.
“The Burke is holding the collection in trust for the Washington Department of Transportation, which owns it,” said Steve Denton, of the museum’s archeology department.
Though Transportation and the tribe worked in concert to create the display, there’s no money for a full, formal analysis of the rest of the collection, he added.
“With a site this big, it would require a lot of funding,” Denton said, and neither the state nor the tribe has indicated it has such resources.
“The intent is to turn over the collection to the tribe, and we’re the repository in the interim.”
Meantime, the small Tse-whit-zen display sits between two far larger Burke exhibitions, the “Coffee: The World in Your Cup” show sponsored by three of Seattle’s heaviest hitters — Boeing, Microsoft and Starbucks — and the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition show, funded by King County lodging taxes, the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs and others.
The Tse-whit-zen display was to come down at the end of August, Denton said, but it’s been extended and will stay up through mid-November.
The Burke Museum, on the University of Washington campus at 17th Avenue NE and Northeast 45th Street, is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
For recorded information, phone 206-543-5590.
More information is available on the museum Web site, www.washington. edu/burkemuseum.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@ peninsuladailynews.com.
